eldiente Posted February 18, 2009 Share Posted February 18, 2009 Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac are accomplices. The "criminal" is the Carter Administration legislation that forced the accomplices to make bad loans to people that couldn't afford them, then was further aggravated by the Clinton Administration's insistence that not enough (bad) loans were being made to people that could afford them even less than the first group. Hardly a catalyst, prole - it is the cause. Freddie Mac was actually a very conservative lender. Most of their loans required 20% down for a house and required good credit scores. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
sobo Posted February 18, 2009 Share Posted February 18, 2009 Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac are accomplices. The "criminal" is the Carter Administration legislation that forced the accomplices to make bad loans to people that couldn't afford them, What....did they have a gun to their head? No.....it was a choice. Jeezus Kevin, how much of an idiot are you, really? Read the legislation, then tell me that you really believe what you wrote. And then look up the term quid pro quo. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
sobo Posted February 18, 2009 Share Posted February 18, 2009 Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac are accomplices. The "criminal" is the Carter Administration legislation that forced the accomplices to make bad loans to people that couldn't afford them, then was further aggravated by the Clinton Administration's insistence that not enough (bad) loans were being made to people that could afford them even less than the first group. Hardly a catalyst, prole - it is the cause. Freddie Mac was actually a very conservative lender. Most of their loans required 20% down for a house and required good credit scores. "Was" being the operative word, and therein lies the rub. The Community Reinvestment Act of 1977 and its subsequent revisions obliterated all of that. Carter's legislation, passed by a Democratically-controlled Congress, effectively mandated (you can read that as "forced", kevbone - effectively a gun against the head, yes) that more loans of a less solid nature be made to minorities and those of lower income. Clinton expanded the program, further relaxing the requirements to get a loan backed by Fannie and/or Freddie. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
prole Posted February 18, 2009 Share Posted February 18, 2009 Tell it to Iceland. That a thirty-year old domestic housing policy of Jimmy Carter carried on under Clinton has ballooned into a global depression doesn't hold water. The global capitalist casino built on derivitives and bad-debt (all kinds of debt) that has thrived in the wake of financial deregulation has been much more effective in inflating the housing bubble and has created the conditions for the spread of the radioactivity globally. Fannie and Freddie might be an important (and certainly not the only) part of the housing-bubble story, but to suggest that it is the cause of the systemic chaos we're now facing is myopic at best, and political opportunism with racial undertones at worst. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
sobo Posted February 18, 2009 Share Posted February 18, 2009 I just love how you seem to pull racism into every thing I say, prole. Read the goddamned Act and see for yourself where it was written so that minorities and lower-income borrowers were specifically targeted as beneficiaries of the said legislation. That's not being racist, that's just stating the facts of the legislation. I'm not makin' this stuff up. It's in the fucking Congressional Record, for god's sake. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
kevbone Posted February 18, 2009 Share Posted February 18, 2009 Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac are accomplices. The "criminal" is the Carter Administration legislation that forced the accomplices to make bad loans to people that couldn't afford them, then was further aggravated by the Clinton Administration's insistence that not enough (bad) loans were being made to people that could afford them even less than the first group. Hardly a catalyst, prole - it is the cause. Freddie Mac was actually a very conservative lender. Most of their loans required 20% down for a house and required good credit scores. And therein lies the rub. The Community Reinvestment Act of 1977 and its subsequent revisions obliterated all of that. Carter's legislation, passed by a Democratically-controlled Congress, effectively mandated (you can read that as "forced", kevbone - effectively a gun against the head, yes) that more loans of a less solid nature be made to minorities and those of lower income. Clinton expanded the program, further relaxing the requirements to get a loan backed by Fannie and/or Freddie. Yada yada yada……great….this debate about HOW we got here can go all day long. Does not help. Question is……how do we fix it? I say…..with this stimulus money…..pay down a couple of % points on some loans. Get the monthly payments down so folks can stay in the house. The loaning company still gets their money and the people keep the house. For those of us that kept paying our loans on time…..give us a tax break/incentive of some sort. Then the banks will start loaning again once people’s credit balances out. Fixed. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jclements Posted February 18, 2009 Share Posted February 18, 2009 The boss forgot to mention the green subsidy he got for putting up a bike rack, lobbying the local gov't to relocate to an area "to provide jobs" and got his taxes deferred, getting the new warehouse built on land conveniently condemned the year before, getting adjoining land for cheap because it was eminent-domained from private citizens, outsourcing his suppliers to China and getting a tax write-off as "foreign production," and getting China to tax him some token amount (which is directed right back into his operations there) - another write off as subsidy, dumping chemicals into the sewer for taxpayers to clean up, HQing his company at a PO Box in Barbados thus sheltering most of his assets from US taxation, issuing stock to an intermediary company who issues stock back, paying himself only $50,000 a year in income but much more than that in long-term capital gain sales, the 600 grand he got from Daddy and his friends after graduating from Yale because he had Daddy's last name, getting a no-bid contract with the school system/military base/gov't agency overseen by the politician he'd contributed to/golfed with; the subsidy he got for hiring a handicapped person and putting in wheelchair ramps, the corporate jet he flies to Aspen with and writes it off as a business expense, the accountant he pays 100K to ensure he pays nearly zero in taxes, or even taking a loss to carry over for years... Not all the above hold for all companies or businessmen, but it's a nice fable just the same. Businessmen aren't hurting because of taxes. The payroll or FICA tax is incidental tax on compensation. It has to come from somewhere. Saying the employer pays half is just a way of saying the employee doesn't pay it all. In that case the employer would have to pay higher wages to meet the labor market. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
prole Posted February 18, 2009 Share Posted February 18, 2009 (edited) I just love how you seem to pull racism into every thing I say, prole. Read the goddamned Act and see for yourself where it was written so that minorities and lower-income borrowers were specifically targeted as beneficiaries of the said legislation. That's not being racist, that's just stating the facts of the legislation. I'm not makin' this stuff up. It's in the fucking Congressional Record, for god's sake. Oh, I know it is. The problems start when one blames the current global economic crisis on decades old legislation benefiting minorities. It simply doesn't hold up under any kind of historical analysis. That should be apparent to anyone. If it doesn't hold up, why is it still being bandied around? Political opportunism from the Right that can wash its hands of any of the responsibility that neoliberal policies with regard to finance played in the current mess while laying the blame for global conflagration at the door of one of the last liberal social policies that this country has seen. While I'm not suggesting that you're arguing that minorities are ultimately to blame, that argument has been made, and has been made by laying all this at the feet of Freddie and Fannie. Anyway, this isn't likely to be of much interest as the rest of the planet has moved on. Edited February 18, 2009 by prole Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
billcoe Posted February 18, 2009 Share Posted February 18, 2009 The boss forgot to mention the green subsidy he got for putting up a bike rack, lobbying the local gov't to relocate to an area "to provide jobs" and got his taxes deferred, getting the new warehouse built on land conveniently condemned the year before, getting adjoining land for cheap because it was eminent-domained from private citizens, outsourcing his suppliers to China and getting a tax write-off as "foreign production," and getting China to tax him some token amount (which is directed right back into his operations there) - another write off as subsidy, dumping chemicals into the sewer for taxpayers to clean up, HQing his company at a PO Box in Barbados thus sheltering most of his assets from US taxation, issuing stock to an intermediary company who issues stock back, paying himself only $50,000 a year in income but much more than that in long-term capital gain sales, the 600 grand he got from Daddy and his friends after graduating from Yale because he had Daddy's last name, getting a no-bid contract with the school system/military base/gov't agency overseen by the politician he'd contributed to/golfed with; the subsidy he got for hiring a handicapped person and putting in wheelchair ramps, the corporate jet he flies to Aspen with and writes it off as a business expense, the accountant he pays 100K to ensure he pays nearly zero in taxes, or even taking a loss to carry over for years... We should lynch the bastard. I KNEW I didn't like him, but now I'm convinced! The payroll or FICA tax is incidental tax on compensation. It has to come from somewhere. Saying the employer pays half is just a way of saying the employee doesn't pay it all. In that case the employer would have to pay higher wages to meet the labor market. The nice thing about moving to China is that you don't have to worry about any of that bullshit. No payroll taxes, no FICA, No FUCA, Social Security, minimal environmental laws, no OSHA, no lawsuits cause someone spilled the coffee in their crotch again...and the people will work for eggrolls and twice chewed dogmeat and NOT money! Now how come this country is loosing 3/4 of a million manufacturing jobs a year again? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jclements Posted February 18, 2009 Share Posted February 18, 2009 "Private sector loans, not Fannie or Freddie, triggered crisis" http://www.mcclatchydc.com/251/story/53802.html Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
sobo Posted February 18, 2009 Share Posted February 18, 2009 I just love how you seem to pull racism into every thing I say, prole. Read the goddamned Act and see for yourself where it was written so that minorities and lower-income borrowers were specifically targeted as beneficiaries of the said legislation. That's not being racist, that's just stating the facts of the legislation. I'm not makin' this stuff up. It's in the fucking Congressional Record, for god's sake. Oh, I know it is. The problems start when one blames the current global economic crisis on decades old legislation benefiting minorities. It simply doesn't hold up under any kind of historical analysis. That should be apparent to anyone. If it doesn't hold up, why is it still being bandied around? Political opportunism from the Right that can wash its hands of any of the responsibility that neoliberal policies with regard to finance played in the current mess while laying the blame for global conflagration at the door of one of the last liberal social policies that this country has seen. While I'm not suggesting that you're arguing that minorities are ultimately to blame, that argument has been made, and has been made by laying all this at the feet of Freddie and Fannie. Anyway, this isn't likely to be of much interest as the rest of the planet has moved on. Well, at least you got one thing right... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jim Posted February 18, 2009 Share Posted February 18, 2009 While neither party has clean hands the Repubs, after pushing their no regulation agenda for the past eight years while forces were growing, have more reason for blame. Greenspan's excessive rate cuts to fuel the housing market as a strategy for growth. Reduction of the capitalization requirements for financial institutions under Bush. That's why they were so over-leveraged. The lack of any oversight of the new financial instruments such as CDO, CDSs and MBS - the Fed had the chance but said it wasn't needed. No oversight of lending practices. No oversight of rating agencies. How else could these dogs be AAA rated? Recalculating the inflation rate using ne methods dis-owned by the rest of the world to obsurce the true inflation rate and keep down the cost of Social Security increases and overstate GNP. Adhering to the market mantra even while making huge federal interventions with Bear Stearns and others - missed opportunities to reign in financial instutions. The Bushies and Repubs in congress controlled the whole ball of was for 7 years and did nothing productive - thanks guys. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Dannible Posted February 19, 2009 Share Posted February 19, 2009 Then, I will close this company down, move to another country, and retire. You see, I'm done. I'm done with a country that penalizes the productive and gives to the unproductive. My motivation to work and to provide jobs will be destroyed, and with it, will be my citizenship. So where are you gonna go that doesn't have taxes that are spent on the unproductive? I hear there are some good opportunities to be had in Somalia right now. The world is pretty black and white, isn't it? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
j_b Posted February 19, 2009 Share Posted February 19, 2009 Switzerland’s largest bank, will pay $780 million to avoid U.S. prosecution and settle regulatory claims that it helped thousands of wealthy Americans use Swiss bank accounts to evade taxes. The Justice Department filed a criminal charge accusing UBS of conspiring to defraud the U.S. by helping 17,000 Americans hide accounts from the Internal Revenue Service. UBS Will Pay $780 Million to Settle U.S. Tax Claims Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
j_b Posted February 19, 2009 Share Posted February 19, 2009 The world's richest individuals have placed $11.5 trillion of assets in offshore havens, mainly as a tax avoidance measure. The shock new figure - 10 times Britain's GDP - is contained in the most authoritative study of the wealth held in offshore accounts ever conducted. The study, by Tax Justice Network, a group of accountants and economists concerned at the escalating wealth held in offshore locations, shows that the world's high-net-worth individuals earn $860 billion each year from their assets. But there is growing alarm among regulators and campaigners because exchequers worldwide are missing out on at least $255bn of tax each year. Governments appear unable, or unwilling, to prevent the rich employing aggressive strategies to minimise their tax liabilities. Super-rich hide trillions offshore Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
j_b Posted February 19, 2009 Share Posted February 19, 2009 President Barack Obama said he would crack down on firms that use offshore centres to evade taxes. He could begin with a New York subsidiary of one of the world’s largest private banks, which used a Cayman Islands company to shift its profits. Why would a New York fund manager run operations through an office in the Caymans? “This type of structure is for optimising taxes,” explained Max Obrist, a Cayman Islands official of the global Julius Baer Group (Zurich). He told IPS that “generating” the income where a company was actually based, “you would pay much more taxes”. Obrist was describing a company shifting claimed earnings to tax havens to evade home taxes. He allegedly helped Julius Baer Investment Management (JBIM) New York do just that. How One Fund’s Profits Ended Up in the Caymans Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
j_b Posted February 19, 2009 Share Posted February 19, 2009 Anywhere from $70 to $100 billion is lost to the U.S. Treasury every year when corporations and individuals fictitiously book in tax havens income that is actually earned in the U.S. or Europe. Legal tax avoidance often blurs into illegal tax evasion, because America has inadequate tax treaties with offshore havens -- reporting may not be truthful, and investigation is often impossible. Last November, departing Internal Revenue Service Commissioner Charles O. Rossotti said that of an estimated 82,100 known cases of offshore tax evasion, the IRS has pursued only 17,000 for lack of resources. How Corporate Tax Evaders Get Away with Billions Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
j_b Posted February 19, 2009 Share Posted February 19, 2009 [video:youtube]t_a5FIhtZvw Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Fairweather Posted February 19, 2009 Share Posted February 19, 2009 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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Fairweather Posted February 19, 2009 Share Posted February 19, 2009 We should have been listening to j_b all along! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Fairweather Posted February 19, 2009 Share Posted February 19, 2009 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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